Deep-pocketed nonprofit groups — funded by unlimited, and mostly undisclosed, contributions — are offering canvassers and phone bankers wages upwards of $15 an hour and dangling perks such as performances by 3 Doors Down, drawings to win iPads and the chance to stay in a “ posh hotel,” POLITICO has learned.

The privatization of the conservative ground game — perhaps more than any organizing by the actual Republican Party — could give Mitt Romney the boost he needs to overcome what Republicans feared would be a huge advantage for Obama’s vaunted volunteer army and his allies in Big Labor, which has long paid canvassers and is doing so again this year in some states.

Liberals, in fact, blazed the path for paid independent canvassing, with unions and environmental groups routinely compensating door-knockers — to say nothing of the 2004 effort by America Coming Together, which used a good portion of the $137 million it raised from rich liberals like George Soros to pay activists to go door-to-door.

Republicans this year were determined to catch up. It’s the free market at work — and a fitting conclusion to an election where a network of independent super PACs and nonprofit groups that form a sort of shadow Republican Party is in the final stages of a planned $1-billion campaign.

“The ground game on our side in 2008 left a lot to be desired. If we had a repeat of that this time around, and it was a close election, we virtually were assuring ourselves of losing,” said Ned Ryun, president of the conservative nonprofit American Majority Action. “The outside groups are filling in the grassroots ground game that in 2004 was the deciding factor in Bush winning.”

The outside groups, including many backed by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, don’t have the contribution limits that parties and candidates have. And they don’t have to tell anyone — let alone the Federal Election Commission — where they got their cash or how they’re spending it, so it’s tough to know just how much they’re paying for canvassing.

But there’s mounting evidence that their efforts — including improved high-tech voter contact systems — are making an impact, especially given that tea partiers and parts of the GOP base are less-than-thrilled with Romney. And some Republicans worry that the privatization of get-out-the-vote efforts is encroaching on the traditional turf and activist base of the official Republican Party.